A Theory of Change for organisational trustworthiness
Here's a little offering to support your case for investing in organisational trustworthiness (full disclosure: this is the mega light version...)
The preamble to this simplified description of a ‘Trust Theory of Change’ is that:
Trust cannot be controlled by your organisation
Trust is something that is ‘given’ to you by other parties
Trust is a decision-making process leading to a ‘mental state’ that impacts attitudes, behaviours and the nuance of relational dynamics
This decision-making process involves assessing the intent, benevolence and competence (or more accurately, the 7 qualities of trustworthiness) of another party (in this case your organisation)
The salience of useful / verifiable information (combined with more nuanced cultural and sociological factors) has a direct impact on this decision-making process and any trust judgement directed towards your organisation
Given all of this, the best way for us as an organisation to benefit from positive trust states (intelligently placed trust by other parties) is to do the intentional work that will make the organisation worthy of trust. That means designing an organisation that operates in alignment to the 7 qualities of trustworthiness (Sutcliffe et al. 2020).
Okay, onto the very basic Theory of Change here (I’m writing this as something you might pick up, critique and evolve for your own unique purpose. And yes, I’m okay with a copy and paste if that’s what helps)…
“Intelligently placed trust helps to align incentives, improve relationships and supports the journey towards better outcomes. That is our belief and we believe it’s empirically grounded (we’ll get into grounding this suggestion over the coming weeks).
We envisage a future where <our organisation> is thought to be the most trustworthy corporation in its category. In fact, in this future <our organisation> is thought to be one of the most verifiably trustworthy organisations in all of <geography or other relevant qualifier>.
Today, however, this is not the case. Many people remain sceptical of the organisations intentions, especially as it relates to initiatives like <contextually qualify. These will be available for every organisation>.
To move towards the future we envisage, we propose <our organisation> use the 7 qualities of trustworthiness model from Sutcliffe et al. 2020 to define and design intent, integrity, respect, fairness, openness, inclusion and competence into our organising principles, organising structure and key activities.
Evidence of this work will be strategically and tactically communicated with various stakeholders. This is how <our organisation> demonstrates the alignment between our stated values and our real world behaviour (this is noteworthy as its a rare thing for any corporation. See Sull et al. 2020 concluding that there isn’t even a correlation between the stated values of modern corporations and their real world behaviours).
Over time, and as this evidence of trustworthiness proliferates, people will begin to believe that <our organisation> is the ‘real deal’. They will support the organisation's intent, feel empowered through the various ways in which they can participate, and feel confident that our value promises will be consistently delivered.
This will enhance the quality of the relationships <our organisation> has with various stakeholders. This will lead to a greater propensity to advocate for the brand and refer others to it (which becomes our ‘marketing engine’ the most corporate of corporate speak).
This will also lead to a greater social licence to operate and more mature co-design and inclusive innovation infrastructure.
It will also lead to real ‘data-driven innovation’ because people will fundamentally believe that the data they choose to share will be used to deliver net benefits, be protected with the best possible practices and align to the social preferences of the the community.
This capacity to use data in new and unique ways will lead to the development of new products on services, support meaningful insights and more informed decision-making, and help ensure progress towards a future where more people than ever before live healthy, dignified lives within the very real constraints of the biosphere.”
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